Whirlwind

The last three months have been a whirlwind for us. As many of you know, in November we began a fundraiser to build an education building at our Oasis of Hope facility in Sao Paulo, Brazil. God’s people responded generously by giving $30,000. As if that weren't enough, we around 30 volunteers come down to Brazil to help us build. This outflow of generosity created a ripple effect among other Christians here in Brazil who are not part of our church. We had over 40 Brazilian volunteers from other churches show up to get involved in this project. It has been really amazing to see God work. We basically put up a building in a month’s time. There is still some finishing work that needs to be done, but we should have it all wrapped up in the next few weeks. We'll put out a video highlighting all thats been done in the coming days.

Growth

The biggest thing that has happened over the last few months has happened among our church people. What we are involved in is more than just building buildings. Buildings crumble and fall, they are just tools to be used in the greater effort to win people and to build their lives on Jesus Christ. Well, that has happened in the last few months. Our church people have been challenged and they have grown through this experience. During the month of February we had evangelistic services every Saturday night, and outreach services in the neighborhoods every Tuesday and Thursday night. Many people committed their lives to Christ, many others rededicated their lives to the Lord, and we had a record amount of visitors. In fact, we have had more visitors in the last three months than in the previous year combined. In my eleven years on the mission field, I have never believed so strongly that we were on the verge of something great. At the same time, our church unity is fragile. Satan has been working to blur our focus and change our direction. We've grown wide, but we also need to grow deep. We are investing considerable time in key leaders in order to develop them as quickly as possible. You can’t speed up the maturity process though, so we are just praying for God’s grace to be poured out in the life our church.

What Comes Next

We are planning on being in the U.S. from August ‘16 - March ’17. The last time we visited most of our partnering churches was in 2011. So, we need to get back and renew our partnerships and seek out new ministry partnerships. We only have a few months to get things organized well enough here at the church for us to leave. We also need your help in scheduling our meetings. Right now oure schedule is wide open. We would love to come and share with you what God has done through our ministry here in Brazil. Please enter in contact with me ASAP to schedule a meeting or mission conference at your church.